The lady this poem is about is simply amazing, and one of the very best friends I have ever had. I miss her more than I can say. I hope this poem honors her as I mean it to.
STAR QUILT
She had her first birthday party
the year she turned eighty,
on the apartment building lawn where
we placed buckets of blooming petunias
and long tables with fried chicken.
The next years we brought her
to our own back yard.
She sat in the shade near the patio
wearing her powwow dress and moccasins,
holding the tiger lilies that my daughters gave her.
Did I show you the star quilt I made,
she'd ask, and I would say no
for the chance to visit,
to see her her masterpieces, each diamond cut individually
and stitched into place by hand.
We used to play board games
at the kitchen table,
the fourth Sunday of every month.
Don't take my pencil,
I'd say, and wait for her chiming laughter.
I wondered how her life fit together,
her birth in a tent by a South Dakota river,
learning English at a boarding school,
the death of a daughter, a divorce,
working for years as a single mother.
My son was born the year she turned eighty five.
He can call me Grandma, she said.
But we moved out of state before he could talk,
and all I have to show him of her life
is the star quilt she sent to him when he turned one.
YOU ARE READING
FRIDAY NIGHT PIZZA
PoetryThis is poetry about normal, ordinary life. Some of it will rhyme. Some of it won't. But I sincerely hope that anyone who stumbles across this will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.
